“We know how many women die every year from gender violence. We know how many young people die every weekend in road accidents. We know how many workers die in job accidents. We know how many prisoners commit suicides in jail. But we do not know how many racist crimes take place every year in Spain.” Esteban Beltran of Amnistia Internacional España, in España se niega contabilizar las agresiones racistas y xenofobas en su territorio.

CIDH Pro Igual just submitted its contribution towards an annual OSCE-ODIHR Hate Crimes report. In its submission, CIDH ProIgual makes a recommendation addressed to the Spanish authorities to collect and make public the data on hate crimes.

By refusing to collect data on racially-motivated crimes the Spanish state keeps these types of offences, and the scope of the problem, invisible. It is not just an affront to the victims. It is deficiency in Spain´s legal framework, which failed to have implemented the letter and spirit of its international human rights commitments and obligations, including the EU equality directives specifically prescribing that the data on racially-motivated cases be collected.

Only when the state has the necessary data, will the true scope of the problem be understood. Only then can the state formulate a meaningful policy to deal with hate crimes. And only then will anti-racism efforts start genuinely to bear fruits.